The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday morning, by a 5-4 majority, to overturn a 1977 decision that let unions require public employees to pay a “fair share fee” whether they’d electively joined their union or not. Making non-members pay fees to cover collective bargaining violates the First Amendment, the court decided: “States and public-sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from nonconsenting employees,” reads the majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito.

It’s every worker’s right, the court has now declared, to decide for himself or herself whether a public-sector union deserves monetary support. The court’s decision acknowledged the gravity of overturning 1977’s Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, and asserted the wrongheadedness of that ruling: “There are very strong reasons in this case. Fundamental free speech rights are at stake. Abood was poorly reasoned. It has led to practical problems and abuse.”